


red robe

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, F/M, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 02:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Scully's thoughts (and Mulder's thoughts seven years later) on the mosquito bites scene from the Pilot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First story reposted from the "one in five billion" drabble series

When she finds the bumps, she isn’t thinking about the case.

She  _was_ thinking about the case, right up until the power went out - she’s a professional, after all - but it’d seemed a little futile to be thinking about it in the dark. She’d figured now was a good a time as any to take a shower. By the time she entered the bathroom with her flickery candle, her mind had turned to a hundred other things - the girls weekend she and Ellen and Kathy have planned a month from now, her brother flying in for Easter, whether or not she can convince Mulder to partake of that salmon he went on and on about tomorrow. And then her fingers brush over the small of her back and find the bumps.

She dismisses it for a split second before she remembers the slide show Mulder presented days ago. The flashing pictures of raised bumps on the backs of corpses. On Karen Swenson and Peggy O’Dell. She begins twisting to try and face the mirror to compare the marks, but the bad lighting and inability to bend that way only increase her panic. She collapses on the closed toilet seat, head spinning, mind racing.

_It could be an animal bite,_  she starts to rationalize, as is her habit.  _Or some kind of rash, you were in the woods all night…_  But the small of her back was unlikely to be exposed to anything that would cause this. Her next thought is that the marks are the result of a virus, something that would explain the death of Karen Swenson and those other kids. But the autopsy showed no explainable cause of death. No plausible explanation for these marks…

She doesn’t believe in aliens and she doesn’t believe these kids were abducted by them. There  _has_ to be some kind of plausible explanation for it all. Scully thinks back on the case, finally landing on the protein-like thing Mulder had asked her to identify. Maybe the bumps are a reaction to exposure to that chemical, maybe she was exposed at some point. But she’s worn gloves, been careful, can’t think of a time when such exposure would be possible… unless it happened during her chunk of missing time.

Scully shivers, scooping her robe up off of the floor and wrapping it around her. “Time can’t just disappear,” she firmly reminds herself in the empty room, echoing her words from earlier.  _It’s a universal invariant._  But something did happen in that car, some kind of… blackout or something. But still, there was no way they were abducted during that time… isn’t there? And the only person who had access to her during this time was Mulder.

It’s a possibility, she supposes, that Mulder could be setting her up, trying to convince her of his insane claims by manipulating her somehow, that he could’ve caused these bumps, but she highly doubts that this is the case. She is here to debunk him, but his behavior towards her these past few days is not suggestive of him doing anything like that to solidify his ideas, to give him credit. He’s passionate, sure, frustrating, sure, but not malicious, she doesn’t think. Besides, he clearly doesn’t care about his reputation (if he’s going to call _himself the FBI’s most unwanted_ , he must be), so the only person he’d be trying to convince by causing these marks is her. She’s not sure why she feels this way, but some small part of her unconsciously trusts him. He’s given her little reason not to - and they are, after all, partners. 

So what does that leave?

She doesn’t believe in aliens. But something is killing these kids, leaving a mammalian creature with an implant up its nose in Ray Soames’ grave. Something is causing these marks. 

_I think those kids have been abducted,_ Mulder had said.  _Abductees… people who have made UFO sightings, they’ve reported unexplained time loss,_  Mulder had said.  _It’s absolutely ridiculous, there is no way they’ve been abducted by aliens,_  Scully thinks. But the signs are all there. Some iota of evidence, insane or no.

She’s thinking crazy, she tries to move her mind away from that, dismiss the marks, but she finds she can’t. Her legs won’t stop trembling when she gets up to turn off the shower. She’s shaken, that’s for sure, and she doesn’t see herself calming down at any point in the foreseeable future. There seems to be only one solution to put her mind at rest. She’s at Mulder’s door within five minutes.

He opens the door, candle in hand, and says, “Hi,” with some kind of gentle surprise. She trusts him, she does, and she kind of hates him and herself for it. If he were some suspicious, awful person, she could dismiss the marks as a result of his manipulation. Safe, scientific explanation. Staying with her priorities. Nope, no problem here.

“I want you to look at something,” she says, hating the way her voice trembles like a reed in the wind. 

“Come on in,” Mulder says immediately. 

He steps aside and she enters. She realizes in the moment that she didn’t consider changing into actual clothes, a shirt that she could easily lift up and show him. Mentally berating herself, she doesn’t bother to turn around or explain, just slips the robe from her arms down past her waist so that the marks are visible in the candlelight. Better to get this done so she can sneak back to her room and drown herself in her embarrassment and/or panic. She looks back at him, where he’s looking at her questioningly.  _This isn’t a come-on_ , she thinks with frustration, motioning towards her back with her chin. He kneels obediently to take a look. “What are they?” she asks, trying to make her voice stop shaking.

His fingers find her spine, gently, and she shivers from the contact. They are warm, imprinting themselves on her skin. The flame flickers. “Mulder, what are they?” she demands, panic rising.

Mulder grins with ease - not a cruel grin, a genuine smile. “Mosquito bites.”

“Are you sure?” she practically stammers, somewhere between relieved and furious at him for making her panic. Her pulse is racing. 

“Yeah. I got eaten up a lot myself out there,” he says, some attempt at comfort.

Scully breathes out in relief, pulling her robe back up. She turns towards Mulder and into his arms, leaning hard against him.

His arms come up around her gingerly, clearly surprised. This is way past Bureau protocol and they’ve known each other for approximately three days. She’s somewhere between furious and ashamed of herself for behaving this way. “You okay?” Mulder asks softly, nose turning slightly into her hair.

The candle light flickers outside her vision. She wasn’t abducted because aliens don’t exist. Whatever happened to those kids didn’t happen to her. Mosquito bites. “Yes,” she says softly.  _I’m just fine._


	2. Chapter 2

It shouldn’t be a big deal, considering the multiple nights he’s spent on her couch (and the one night years ago he spent in her bed after his father died), but it  _feels_ like a big deal. He’s sitting in his partner’s bed, in pajama pants and a t-shirt that are mostly a courtesy, flipping through the dog-eared book on her bedside table and waiting for her to get out of the shower. It’s bizarrely domestic of them. He loves it. 

The door creaks open and Scully exits the bathroom in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a gigantic red robe. Mulder peers over the edge of the book and raises an eyebrow in amusement. She catches her expression and makes a face. “Judging my fashion choices, Mulder?” 

“No, just trying to figure out where I’ve seen it before,” he says contemplatively. “You haven’t worn it on cases before, have you?”

“If I had, I probably wouldn’t have worn it in front of you,” Scully deadpans, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s not like we hung out in our pajamas, Mulder.”

“Too bad,” he drawls, leaning across the quilt to kiss her cheek. She smirks, sliding her hand down to slip into his. “Seriously, thought, when did you get this? I remember it from somewhere.” 

“Mom gave it to me for Christmas. It reminded her of one I used to have, but it was lost in the fire on our first case.” 

He has a sudden memory of Scully’s terrified face in flickering candlelight, looking young with her hair tangled around her face and a red robe hanging off of her frame. “Oh,  _that’s_ what it reminded me of,” he says in realization. “When you came to my motel room to show me your mosquito bites.”

Her cheeks pink and she looks down at her knees. “Of course you’d remember that,” she mumbles. 

“It was memorable.”

“It was embarrassing as hell. I’ve never felt so unprofessional in my life.”

“I was impressed by that, actually.” She shoots him a look, and he adds, “Not like that. Well, I mean, yes like that, but that’s not what I meant.” She slugs him in the shoulder and he mock-pouts at her, jutting out his lower lip. “What I meant was that you considered my theory. You looked at the evidence, and wanted to see if it matched up. You were just investigating. And hey, come on. With my history, I wasn’t going to judge you for getting shaken up.”

“Hmmm.” Scully chuckles quietly. “Actually, I kind of thought you’d caused the marks for a minute.”

“What?”

“Just for a minute.” She smirks a little at him. “I don’t believe in aliens, remember? I thought that whatever was causing the marks in those kids, that you might’ve done it to me when we were blacked out in the car to convince me of your theory.”

Mulder blinks, surprised. “Wow,” he says. “You really didn’t trust me, did you?”

She shakes her head, smile growing. “You’re an idiot, Mulder. Of course I trusted you; do you really think I would’ve stripped in your hotel room if I hadn’t?  _You’re_ the one who didn’t trust  _me_.”

“I trusted you!” he protests. She cocks an eyebrow knowingly. “Okay, fine, I didn’t trust you at first. But I started trusting you. Fairly soon, considering I sat down and told you my entire life story five minutes later.” 

“Hmm.” She toys with the edge of the quilt, a small smirk crossing her face. “I seem to remember the first thing I said after that story being, ‘You’ve got to trust me’.” 

“That was a test. You passed.”

“Oh?” The snide look on her face is too much. He leans across the comforter and kisses her. She hums, pleased, into his mouth, and peels off the robe before crawling further onto the bed.


End file.
